sick of losing soulmates
by ARandomFangirler
Summary: He hoped for something, anything to remind him of who Maia used to be to him, but that was all. A mere flutter of a memory. A haze of vague recognition. (one-shot; implied sizzy, implied saia)


"Is this seat taken?"

It was kind of a stupid question to ask, Simon thought, seeing as he was sitting on the grass. But the girl stood beside him - curvy, with warm brown skin and a mountain of frizzy curls piled up on her head and twined with silvery hairpins - seemed genuinely curious for his answer, so Simon shrugged and shook his head. He could guess by now that she was one of the many, many people he'd apparently forgotten; he could tell by the almost sad look in her honey-gold eyes. She was good at hiding it though, better than Clary and Isabelle were.

"I know you, right?" Simon checked, and the girl nodded, sitting down beside him and smoothing out her dress. She was being very careful not to look directly at him, he noticed, like her eyes would get scorched out otherwise.

"I'm Maia," she said, without judgement. Simon felt that he'd heard her voice before - well, of course he had - and he hoped for something, anything to remind him of who Maia used to be to him, but that was all. A mere flutter of a memory. A haze of vague recognition. "We used to date, once."

Simon winced automatically. First Isabelle, now Maia? Was the vampire version of himself some kind of Casanova?

Maia saw his expression and grinned. She had a pretty smile, one that lit up her whole face. "It didn't work out," she informed him. "You cheated on me with Isabelle."

Simon wondered why he'd ever be stupid enough to cheat on Isabelle or Maia with anyone, let alone each other, but just nodded in acceptance. He wondered what Maia was. She wasn't a Shadowhunter - her brown arms were bare of tattoos - but there was a white scar on the side of her neck and throat that made him wonder if she was something else than human, too. A few hours ago, this line of thinking had seemed ridiculous. And now Maia was sitting with him, telling him about a life he used to have. One where he cheated on her, apparently.

"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly, and Maia patted his arm.

"It's okay," she said, and laced her fingers together. "You were always a good friend to me. Out all of them - Clary, Jace, Isabelle - you were the only other one really like me. You made them see me as human."

"You're-a vampire?" Simon asked haltingly, and Maia shook her head, her pretty curls bouncing.

"A werewolf," she corrected, though she did not look much like one. There was a significant lack of hair, for a start. "I knew you for a couple of days. Before. Even though everything was so weird for you, you were...nice. Made stupid jokes while Jace smashed up a werewolf bar."

Maia jerked her head towards Jace - Clary's boyfriend, who was tall and ripped and kind of like an angel on steroids. Of course Jace had smashed up a werewolf bar. He wondered what werewolf bars were even like, and then realised that that was going vastly off topic and mostly just ignoring the whole emotional whirlwind that was suddenly storming through his brain as Maia talked.

"I guess," Maia said slowly, glancing at him through her lashes, "what I'm saying is, everyone here remembers you as a hero. As boyfriend or a best friend. But to me you were just Simon, the guy who lent me his DS and who wanted to know he was still human. The version of you closest to the one I see right now, I guess."

"Were you there?" Simon suddenly blurted out. "When I lost my memories? Magnus said I was cursed. That I sacrificed myself, or something, but Clary and Isabelle won't talk about it and everyone else kind of, uh, scares me."

Maia shook her head again. "I was here," she said. "In New York, actually, dealing with some of the mess you'd accidentally left behind."

She didn't elaborate, and Simon was grateful for that. Everything had been so overwhelming - Clary, calling him and showing up at his school, Isabelle dancing with him, Magnus standing by the steps and offering him a spellbook and both a past he didn't remember and a future that would unlock it. "Do you know what happened, though?" Simon asked, and Maia's smile was soft and sad, the setting sun painting her in shades of brown and gold.

"Yeah," she said, and braced her hands onto the grass. "Do you want to know?"

"No," he decided. "I don't."

"Is it weird to say I was jealous of you?" Maia said suddenly, turning to him. Her voice was hushed now, like she was scared of anyone overhearing. "I would've given anything to forget what happened to me, once. Sometimes I think I still would. And it sucks, seeing you like this and seeing Clary and Isabelle like this, but you get a blank slate. A fresh start from all the crap you got dragged into."

"Magnus said that it was a little fascist," Simon recalled, "to take that away from me. The glory, and stuff."

"But it isn't real glory," Maia said. "They never saw you as anything more than a means to an end. The Clave, I mean. They act like they've changed, but they haven't. I know you've already made your choice by being here, and you shouldn't change your mind because of me, but that's what they won't tell you. Be a Shadowhunter, if you want, but Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Alec - all the half-decent ones have had to break the Law in order to be half-decent. That's all."

She stood then, expression inescapably sad as she glanced at Magnus and who Simon had figured was his boyfriend, Isabelle's brother, Alec. "Shadowhunters believe in soulmates, you know," Maia started. "Clary and Jace. Magnus and Alec. Jem and Tessa. I never thought there was much truth in it. Not in this life, anyway. But maybe in another-" she broke off, and looked down at Simon with a funny little smile on her face. "I don't know. We could've been good, you and I, if things had been different."

A Chinese vampire girl with brightly-coloured streaks embedded in her black flapper's curls was making her way towards them, dancing slightly out of time to the song being played on the piano. Simon felt another faint flicker of recognition, this one laced with fear. He'd been a vampire, he knew. He wondered who this girl had meant to him.

"That's my cue," Maia said, and waved at the vampire, who scowled back. "I don't think I have to tell you not to tell Isabelle about what I just said."

Then she was gone, darting over to the vampire with a strange grace and laughing as her friend made some droll comment. Simon swallowed. He'd talked to a lot of people tonight - people force-feeding him information that he was supposed to know, people bluntly reminding him of rules that Simon didn't even know existed. And then there had been Maia, he thought, staring after her retreating back. She was the only one of them who'd talked about a what-if. Something about it made him as sad as she looked.

Clary was walking in his general direction, and Simon pasted on a smile as she caught his eye. It isn't real glory, Maia had said, as if they'd talked about it before. But maybe Simon didn't care about glory.

Maybe he wanted something else.


End file.
